13122.F

8th of June, 2026 AD

I am standing in a crowded parking lot of an endless strip mall. I look at the highway that brought us here, the same highway I’ve driven down countless times. Both as a small child in the back of my parent’s minivan and as a driver getting back and forth between work and home. A reliable road by all accounts.

My brother’s family and I arrived together in the same car, yet I have already forgotten what it looks like. Their German Shepherd came too. She, for whatever reason, is on edge. As if she senses something is wrong. I’m the only one that feels that her behavior is off. I say something, but everyone dismisses me. She stays behind to guard the car while we walk around and shop.

The store names and layouts are familiar but there is just something about their placement together. We go into the first shop. Not empty, but not lively either. I take a few steps inside and inhale the nothingness of stale retail air.

And then I notice it.

The people don’t have faces. Why don’t they have faces?

They stand still as if time itself had stopped. I say something, but everyone dismisses me. I continue forward into the shop, populated with clothing racks and dressed mannequins indistinguishable from the shoppers standing idle. My brother and his family buy some seemingly fashionable garments. They love them so much that they go into the dressing rooms to change. They emerge wearing their new outfits. But something else is new about them too…

Their faces are gone.

It has to be the clothes. I say something, but everyone dismisses me.

I run out only to see that all of the other shops and cars have disappeared. My brother’s dog is now out loose and running around rampant. She runs straight for the highway to get away from the chaos and uncertainty as cars are zooming by. I scream for her to come back and she doesn’t. The cars get louder and her barking pierces my soul.

Fearing what will happen to her, I look away so I don’t have to see it happen. I close my eyes and pray it doesn’t. But the barking stops.

Suddenly everything goes quiet and dark.

I am standing alone in a parking lot underneath a flickering street light. The highway and sky have disappeared. All that remains is cracked asphalt long neglected and a dying fluorescent yellow glow. I realize what’s happening. I say it out loud.

“I am going to disappear now.”

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